Is the Atari Lynx closer to the Genesis or Super Nintendo?

[Jakandsig]

As we all know, the Atari Lynx is a very powerful portable gaming console with unkown sales figures maybe we will find out some day, but there are not hard to get so i would definitely say that you should get one.

 

Now one would put it closer to the Genesis due to the sound and the lower resolution, but also having very fast games. But one could compare the Lynx to the Super nintendo for the built in sprite effects and unlike the Super Nintendo, 3D capabilities packed in at launch. However, that still imo would not put it near the Neo-Geo which while not a 3d System seesm to have much more power and sprite manipulation than the Lynx. So i believe that the only console comparisons that are correct are the Genesis and Super Nintendo.

 

Some may compare it to the TG-16, but the TG16 does not have the sprite manipulation techniques (or the color count from what I read but that could be wrong so correct me if it is) along with lack of even pseudo-3d like effects. In fact, the Turbo Express would be a way to see the difference between the two as it is basically a portable Tg16.

 

I personally feel that the Lynx do to being able to do a few things the SNES can't as well as better sound samples than the Gensis may be a bit closer to the Snes while also seeming to be faster than the Super Nintendo. Now I am not saying that the Lynx can spank the Super nintendo, no no no, although that is debatable, I am just saying in terms of power and performance.

[Austin]

The Lynx has good sound for what it is, but I haven't heard any games that sound more advanced and/or "better" than some of the good stuff on the Genesis. To be honest, most Lynx games even sound the same.

[Osgeld]

its like a turbographics that was dropped on the floor while in development, take most of its games put it on a screen where you can actually see whats going on and it rivals a powerful 8 bit machine IE some of the late 8 bit arcades

 

outside of a couple clever effects its blobs of color and low framerate, which the latter a DSTN screen hides very well in a POV effect

Edited January 15, 2014 by Osgeld

[108 Stars]

Silly thread. The Lynx is the Lynx, no more and no less. SNES and Genesis are different animals.

[Rex Dart]

Mine is closer to a Dreamcast than Genesis or SNES.

 

They're in another room.

[Kiwi]

Lynx is sprite based system while SNES and Genesis are tile based system. One thing that stand out from both SNES and Genesis that there is no sprite flickering or dropping out. There's can be as much sprites on screen as long there is memory for it to be drawn, which the system has 64KB of RAM for. Lynx is almost like GameGear which has 4096 colors to pick from. The hardware blitter that Lynx has really made the system unique and ahead of it time. There's no way Gamegear and Gameboy can reproduce Lynx graphic capability. SNES and Genesis would have to do the graphic resizing in software. Even if the screen seems to have tiling, but it just sprites sewn together.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Kiwi

[Cynicaster]

For all the talk about how "ahead of its time" the Lynx was, I sure struggle to enjoy it nowadays. Last year I bought an original Gameboy and Lynx in the same week with a handful of games for each, and I just find the Gameboy consistently more fun to play despite it's lack of color and backlight. It should have been no surprise because I reached the same conclusion back in 1990 when I traded up my Gameboy for a Lynx and ended up regretting selling my Gameboy.

 

The Lynx screen has horrendous contrast and it seems like the player sprites usually fill up way too much real estate, resulting in a claustrophobic feel to the games.

 

I've no doubt it could have been great had it been backed by the same level of developer money and muscle that the Gameboy enjoyed, but that didn't happen, so it's kind of moot.

[malducci]

The Lynx isn't 'sprite' based. The NeoGeo is 'sprite' based. The Lynx is blitter based. Nothing more, nothing less. Blitter based video systems are completely different than raster tile/sprite based systems like the SNES/Genesis.

 

Some may compare it to the TG-16, but the TG16 does not have the sprite manipulation techniques (or the color count from what I read but that could be wrong so correct me if it is) along with lack of even pseudo-3d like effects.

 

 

The TG16 hardware is just like the SNES/Genesis. Neither of those systems has 'sprite manipulation techniques' (I assume you mean scaling or warping). The Lynx has a single 16 color bitmap screen. Everything gets blitted to that screen map/buffer. The 16 colors point to one of 4096 colors. The TG16 has 512 colors total, but it can show 481 unique colors on screen without ~any~ hardware tricks or extra cpu resource. The TG16 processor is faster and has more opcodes than the lynx 65c02. The TG16 sound has more channels and is superior in design (timbre/effects/waveforms/etc). Being sprite and tile based, the TG16 requires very little cpu resource to move objects and backgrounds around on screen at 60fps - compared to the Lynx. Even more so if you consider the resolution difference between the two (TG16 is building/moving/pushing way more pixels around per frame than the Lynx). The higher screen resolution of the TG16/Express, dismisses any advantange of the 4096 vs 512 master palette difference. All you have to do, is look at games like CV: Rondo, or Fatat Fury Special, or World Heroes 2, or SF2:CE on the TG16/PCE - to realize this. Even the GameGear has the Lynx beat in the color department (same 4096 master palette, but 31 colors on screen without tricks).

 

A blitter system offers some more flexibility over sprite/tile bases systems, but it's directly limited by the blitting speed and the overhead of having to make a BG map via blitting blocks/tile-segments to the buffer. There's more overhead on the cpu side, and the frame rate is limited by how fast the blitter can perform the pixel draw functions. That said, the low bitmap color hurts the Lynx IMO. But the resolution is what kills it for me. The TG16 could have added a blitter chip on the card/cart, and do any of the effects the Lynx does.

Edited January 21, 2014 by malducci

[johannesmutlu]

I think the lynx has some advanced features wich the snes,genesis and the t16 do lack,like builtin sprite scaling,polygon etc,, however only the resolution, the amount of colors on screen and the slow ram is limited, also the lynx is technically a non-standard system,eventrough you can get around many limitations of the lynx trough programming trick wich is cool, because to me, it'sall about programming in how the get the best out of systems and how to get around limitations, admittedly, the snes is my most favo home console followed by the genesis and on 3th place the turbographix BUT, theres something special about the lynx,despites being less fun with bizzar games on it,i like the fact that it become the first color portible 16bit handheld system with great features at 1989, only bad thing is,, why atari called it lynx and not handy, it better fits to it refering to the left/richt feature of it.

[high voltage]

Amiga, they both outclass the Megadrive and the SNES

Edited May 29, 2015 by high voltage

[AtariORdead]

Amiga, they both outclass the Megadrive and the SNES

Depends on what types of games.

 

Amiga is far far better for strategy, point and click, Simulations etc.

 

Snes and megadrive are far better for action, platform, fighting, shooters etc.

 

To get the best of both worlds, you really needed an amiga + either MD or Snes.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Without reading the OP or examining the actual system specs, IMO the Atari Lynx is a cross between the Gameboy and the TurboGrafx. TG-16 proved that bits are meaningless. So do the recurring Jag vs N64 threads which are an ongoing theme in the Jaguire forum.

 

TG-16 in terms of the bright and colorful graphics. Gameboy in terms of resolution. I owned a Lynx during my childhood with Ninja Gaidan, Pacland, Toki, and Qix so I somewhat know what I'm taljing about.

 

IMO, the Lynx is too pixellated to be a TG-16, too colorful to be a Game Boy.

[high voltage]

Depends on what types of games.

 

Amiga is far far better for strategy, point and click, Simulations etc.

 

Snes and megadrive are far better for action, platform, fighting, shooters etc.

 

To get the best of both worlds, you really needed an amiga + either MD or Snes.

Gods, Zool, Axel's Magic Hammer, Superfrog, Alfred Chcken, just naming 5 platformers made originally for Amiga, and preferable than platform stuff on SNES, Genesis, for me anyway.

Chaos Engine, Alien Breed, Worms, most of the Team 17 stuff actually, Blood Money, Project X, Agony, Apidya, Menace ......action, shooting, all great stuff on Amiga. UK developers shined on Amiga, shorter timeframe, but the stuff is out there.

 

Fighters, a genre best for consoles, yes.

Edited May 30, 2015 by high voltage

[Austin]

IMO, the Lynx is too pixellated to be a TG-16, too colorful to be a Game Boy.

 

The Lynx is a truly interesting piece of kit. It has far smoother scaling and scrolling than a TG-16, yet the resolution isn't that much better than a Game Boy (if that). Sound isn't up to TG-16 levels either (despite my earliest post in this thread I'm re-reading now, a year later, haha).

[Andromeda Stardust]

Sound is on par with Gameboy, maybe slightly better. The speaker was loud and definitely the beefiest of the three handhelds, but it really shined in stereo with headphones.

[AtariORdead]

Gods, Zool, Axel's Magic Hammer, Superfrog, Alfred Chcken, just naming 5 platformers made originally for Amiga, and preferable than platform stuff on SNES, Genesis, for me anyway.

Chaos Engine, Alien Breed, Worms, most of the Team 17 stuff actually, Blood Money, Project X, Agony, Apidya, Menace ......action, shooting, all great stuff on Amiga. UK developers shined on Amiga, shorter timeframe, but the stuff is out there.

 

Fighters, a genre best for consoles, yes.

One genre I love the Amiga for is the overhead racers. Its a genre I really enjoy and while consoles have a handful, the Amiga has a load of great games in this genre.

[Jess Ragan]

No doubt, it's closer to the Super NES than the Genesis. It's in the 6502 processor family, just like the Super NES, and it's got hardware scaling and rotation, just like the Super NES.

 

I do recall the developers saying that they considered giving it a 68000 processor, but the power consumption would have been just too high... and you know how quickly the Lynx eats batteries even without one.

[CatPix]

Tho it's not the CPU, not even the color screen. It's the neon backlight that drain batteries so much on the Lynx (and the Game Gear as well ).

LED backlight mods improve the battery life ofnthose system alot.

[The Usotsuki]

65C02, right? That's a CPU designed for lower power draw iirc.

[7800fan]

If it contains 6500 variant, would it be possible to make a 2600 adapter that handles TIA to LCD conversion and pass controller through emulated RIOT? Granted 2600 could do more than 16 colors but very few games displayed more than 16 per scanline so it is possible.

 

The only issue I could see is 102 lines vs Atari 2600's 192 lines so the image would seems missing every other line. For most older games, it'd be fine but newer games with higher detail might look "off"

Edited June 2, 2015 by 7800fan

[CatPix]

The TIA is, despite the name, more than a Television Interface, it's the whole heart of the 2600.

You'd need to emulate it whole, and I think it's more than the Lynx can handle.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Tho it's not the CPU, not even the color screen. It's the neon backlight that drain batteries so much on the Lynx (and the Game Gear as well ).

LED backlight mods improve the battery life ofnthose system alot.

Yeah, minus infinity for battery eaters! When I got my Game Boy Color my senior year of high school, I remembered the Lynx from my preteen years and wanted to see how the AA mileage compared. I spent nearly every waking hour over an entire weekend playing Tetris DX, and by Sunday evening the red power LED slowly started to fade out and went black, then sometime later the instant blanking of the screen with a pop and sizzle from the speaker let me know the batteries had finally died. It seemed that single pair of Energizer Bunny alkaline batteries had well exceeded the advertised too-good-to-be-true 10 hour battery life! I was still dropping Tetris pieces in my sleep that night...

Edited June 3, 2015 by stardust4ever

[roland p]

I do recall the developers saying that they considered giving it a 68000 processor, but the power consumption would have been just too high... and you know how quickly the Lynx eats batteries even without one.

Q. Why does the Lynx use a 6502 and not a 68000?

 

A. "Some people believe it's less of a processor than the 68000, for example.

That series of chip was used in the Amiga, but it wouldn't make our

machine do things any better. In fact, it would only make the unit larger

and more expensive. It's also harder to write 68000 code, so we

definitely made the right decision."

--R.J. Mical

 

"The real answer for the choice for the 6502 vs. 68000 was price.

Secondary considerations (that did not really enter into the decision

making process): 68000 code is very fat compared to 6502 code. An

application that takes 1K of 6502 code averages 2.5 to 3K of 68000 code.

The 6502 is very bus-efficient, the 68000 has lots of dead time on the

bus. As for it being harder to write 68000 code, that is probably not

true, and in any case was not part of the reason the decision was made."

--Stephen Landrum

 

Additionally, inside sources at Atari said that one major reason for the

6502 vs 68000 processor choice was that the 6502 design was available as a

component that could be plugged into a custom chip design. This allowed

engineers to build a chip with a 6502 and other supporting hardware around

it all in one package. It was not until 1993-1994 that Motorola offered

the 68000 as a design component.

https://atariage.com/Lynx/faq/index.html

[+madman]

If it contains 6500 variant, would it be possible to make a 2600 adapter that handles TIA to LCD conversion and pass controller through emulated RIOT? Granted 2600 could do more than 16 colors but very few games displayed more than 16 per scanline so it is possible.

 

The only issue I could see is 102 lines vs Atari 2600's 192 lines so the image would seems missing every other line. For most older games, it'd be fine but newer games with higher detail might look "off"

Despite using seemingly basic hardware, the 2600 is quite difficult to emulate, due in part to the way it draws the screen. Some friends and I worked on a 2600 emulator for the PSX while in college and while it worked, the frame rate was downright miserable. It was mostly in C with some parts in ASM, if I recall, but still, not an easy system to emulate.

[CatPix]

Just thinking tho, it could be amusing to see is there is a way to emulate the TIA on a small chip (ASIC/FPGA) and fit into a Lynx card, with a flash memory.

I guess it would require extra engineering as the Lynx, as it may need to remind people, use cards akin to the PC engine and BitCorp Gamate, and not carts (which is more a form factor difference, both are a slab of PCB with ROM chips; card use low-profile ROM that are usually smaller, that's all)

But maybe that could be done, using the Lynx RAM, display of course, CPU, and fitting a TIA into a card.

 

I think it's technically possible, the thing is : is it worth it?

 

I mean that making a whole Atari 2600 handheld or making it for any other system that use carts (even if not using a 65C02) is probably feasible, but...

The PC Engine use a 65C02, and the Watara Supervision, which sounds a bit more fitting thanks to superior resolution and using cards.

Yet I think that one could recreate the whole 2600 on a FPGA and transmit the data to a Game Boy and Game Boy color.

 

Again, it's technically possible; but is it feasible (chip size, power consumption, latency... and COST)?

I think you could simply pick up a PSP for 30€/$ and install an emulator. I did it and it works fine.